THE TOWNSCAPE MOVEMENT AND THE EVOLUTION OF THE COMPACT CITY CONCEPT

Abstract

The search for sustainable cities has seen the Compact City as a better way to structure urban areas. This statement is corroborated by the fact that, among the guidelines proposed by the United Nations on the last Habitat Conference, there are several compact city principles. Given the importance of this model, this article presented an overview of its development, its main thinkers, the most relevant publications and the context in which the Compact City concept was developed, focusing on the importance of the thought and activity of the Townscape movement in the consolidation of the model since the end of the 1940’s. From the publications analyzed, one can recognize two phases in the concept’s evolution: a formative period (1940-1970), characterized by the search for an alternative to the postwar urban models; and a second moment (since the 1980’s), when the concept took its current form and started to be proposed as an answer to environmental problems and, secondarily, to other challenges of contemporary urbanization.